Open Source Software (OSS) is the way forward in the larger public interest. Google, Linux, Android and many such big companies have opened up their many products for the larger community and the big organisation like NASA is no exception.

OSS is computer software with its source code made available with a license in which the copyright holder provides the rights to study, change, and distribute the software to anyone and for any purpose.

Since 2014, NASA has been making an effort to reach out to the common people by allowing to access many of their software and state-of-the-art technology for free. This year, they have opened up the crazy amount of software for public to encourage the innovation in this field. So all the technology enthusiast, innovators, and entrepreneur; don’t miss this opportunity and check it out if you think you can leverage the software or technology in your next invention, who knows? you could be the nextElon Musk, SpaceX.

The agency has released its 2017-2018 software catalogue, which includes code for everything from drones, to data and image processing, to health and medicine, to propulsion, reports TechCrunch. All the software is completely free and without any royalty or copyright fees restriction. While Announcing the latest software release Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) in Washington, said:

“The software catalogue is our way of supporting the innovation economy by granting access to tools used by today’s top aerospace professionals to entrepreneurs, small businesses, academia and industry. Access to these software codes has the potential to generate tangible benefits that create American jobs, earn revenue and save lives.”

The software catalogue is a product of NASA’s Technology Transfer program, managed by the agency by STMD. The program ensures technologies developed for missions in exploration and discovery are broadly available to the public, maximising the benefit to the nation.